


Whirlwind

by Applesandbannas747



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: When Kally’s team plays a game of spin the bottle, Tanner escalates things in a glass-shattering sort of way over a little tongue.
Relationships: Kally Jenkins/Tanner Reed
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	Whirlwind

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Impulse and Consequence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17835218) by [Applesandbannas747](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747). 



> Remember a million years ago I wrote a fic with a throwaway line about a game of spin the bottle? Yeah. I always meant to write something for that game and here we finally are. It felt weird to put it in a series with the fic it's a spin-off of, so we're just using the inspired by thing instead (but that could change if y'all think a series would make more sense and I'm being silly) but it most certainly is in the same universe as _Impulse and Consequence_. I hope you enjoy 💜

Kally laughed as he watched the bottle spin around and around and around, the feeble lamplight shining through the noxious green color of it and casting them all in an alien glow, lit up from beneath like children telling scary stories at the campfire. He couldn’t believe he’d been talked into this. But that wasn’t true—he _could_ believe it. He and Tanner and Harvard and Aiden…they could all talk each other into anything. That’s what they’d become since taking over Kings Row’s fencing team. A sort of family.

A sort of family that was currently playing spin the bottle.

Aiden’s idea. Of course. He’d found an old bottle under the couch. Harvard had told him not to touch it because who knew what it was or where it had been? Aiden had made a lewd joke and continued to examine it. Then he’d grinned wickedly and placed it on the table, right between him and Kally.

Harvard had protested but Aiden always got his way—especially against Harvard—and now here they were. In the clubhouse, out late because of the extended curfew for Kings Day—the last Friday of March each year to celebrate the school’s founder—gathered around a table. Around a bottle that had been under that couch for longer than they’d known the couch existed.

The bottle teetered to a stop, its neck pointing squarely at Kally.

“Pucker up, Jenkins, looks like we’re up first,” Aiden said, already leaning over the table.

Kally laughed again—what else was there to do?—and leaned over the short table, meeting Aiden right in the middle. He was still partially laughing when their lips came together. Kally had heard all sorts of things about Aiden Kane, and many of those things involved how talented he was with his mouth. Most agreed he was the best kisser at Kings Row. Kally must have been immune because his stomach didn’t drop, his heart didn’t soar, he didn’t find the experience anything besides funny. When Aiden darted a tongue in his mouth, all he could think was how jealous Aiden’s followers would be to know about this. How offended they’d be to know that Kally wasn’t enjoying it in the way kisses were meant to be enjoyed. It was just a joke, a story to share between them and laugh at later.

_Crash!_

Kally jerked away, Aiden swore, glass cascaded around them both.

“Tanner!” Harvard boomed, his hands already tugging Aiden’s head close, carefully parting hair and looking for any sign of hurt. “Are you all right?” He asked softly. Aiden nodded, insofar as he could with his face still cupped in Harvard’s hands.

Kally looked up and saw Tanner standing over Aiden, the neck of a noxiously green bottle held in his hand. That’s when his mind caught up with what had happened.

“Tanner!” Kally said, just as Harvard had before him. Harvard was attending Aiden but there was nothing to save Tanner from an immediate scolding from Kally. “Did you just— _break_ that bottle over Aiden’s head?”

The answer seemed obvious but Kally was still having a hard time believing it. Tanner, wound-up and angry, looked down at the remainder of the bottle in his hand and then to Aiden.

“He deserved it,” he spat.

Kally closed his eyes, counted down from five. Tanner was prone to irrational and stupid actions when he got upset but this was something else.

“You could have really hurt him,” Kally said. “If that bottle had been made of heavier stuff, you could have given him a concussion or blunt force head trauma.”

“I didn’t hit him _that_ hard,” Tanner said, replacing the jagged-edged neck on the table. “It just shattered right off. And Aiden’s fine.”

“Aiden is _not_ fine,” Aiden said, “Aiden just got a bottle smashed on his head and is feeling like a little payback might be in order.”

“Aiden,” Harvard captured Aiden’s hand, which had been darting for the abandoned weapon. “Don’t stab Tanner, you’ll regret it later if you do.”

“He deserves it!”

“ _You_ deserved it,” Tanner scathed, red hot again. “You should have kept you stupid fucking slimy tongue to yourself!”

“That’s no fun,” Aiden climbed to his feet to meet Tanner’s glare head-on. “That’s not how you play the game.”

“You—,”

“Tanner, stop it,” Kally said sharply. “Remember our talk about healthy ways to cope with anger? _That,_ ” he gestured to the mess of glass, “isn’t a healthy coping mechanism. If you don’t calm down, I’ll tell Coach about this.”

They all stared at him, even Aiden. Telling Coach about this would mean Tanner was off the team. They had a zero-tolerance policy about violence here.

“I’m not hurt,” Aiden said, pulling a hand through his hair and shaking it free of glass. “Just not pleased. It’s not that big a deal, Kally, really.”

“No,” Kally finally joined the rest of his team in standing. “It _is_ that big a deal. You could have been seriously hurt. And _you_ ,” again, Kally turned to Tanner, “are lucky Aiden’s such a great friend and isn’t going to turn you in when it’s well within his rights to _press charges_ if he wanted to. Think before you act.”

Tanner wisely shut up, staying in a quiet sulk.

“I’m going to take Aiden to the nurse, just to make sure all’s well,” Harvard said into the uncomfortable silence. “Tanner, you clean up the mess.”

“I’ll stay and lock up after,” Kally said. Harvard nodded and gave him the key. When they’d left, Tanner spoke up again.

“He shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Actually,” Kally said briskly, “yes, he should have. It’s spin the bottle. That’s what you do. Kiss people.”

“But he—,”

“Here,” Kally pushed a broom into Tanner’s hands. “Be sure to get up all the glass or we’ll all suffer for it later. I’ll get a garbage sack.”

Tanner didn’t try speaking again, just swept in silence, occasionally coming to empty the dustpan into the sack Kally held. He’d correctly read Kally’s mood as no-nonsense and wasn’t about to test it again. It wasn’t often that Kally got mad and he’d been told that his was an icy anger, the sort that was hard to deal with because of its cold disapproval and the distance it forced you to keep. It was hard to make Kally mad and people were careful not to do it. In freshman year, Aiden had offended Kally so thoroughly that he hadn’t spoken to him for a month.

He knew Tanner hadn’t meant to harm Aiden, though, and that was the only thing keeping him from cutting Tanner loose. It was what always kept Kally by Tanner’s side. He had a good heart, he just got over-excited. He was so full of passion, it caught him up in the moment. Sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing. Sometimes, though, it was this.

Usually, Kally caught him before anything happened. Harvard had once asked him why he bothered. _It’s not your job to take care of him._ Kally didn’t think of it as work. He and Tanner…they were just like that. Tanner was wild and free and vibrant and Kally was there to ground him. Tanner was a kite in the wind and Kally was the one holding the string. It wasn’t always easy to hold onto, especially when particularly strong gusts of wind came in, but it was worth it. You didn’t run with kites because you wanted them to be still. You did it because you loved watching them fly. And Kally loved watching Tanner fly, free-spirited and joyous.

“I’m not sure,” Kally said after a long stretch of quiet, “but I think people can die from stuff like that. If you hit them properly.” He looked up from his garbage bag to meet Tanner’s blue eyes. “Do you understand why that upsets me? What you did?”

Tanner shuffled uncomfortably. “Yeah,” he said. “But I wasn’t trying to hurt him, just make him back off. And that bottle was so flimsy, I don’t think it even really hit him before it shattered.”

“Okay,” Kally nodded. “Don’t do something like that again.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m serious, Tanner Reed, I’ll never talk to you again if you pull that again, do you hear me?”

“Yeah, Kally, I got it. I won’t.”

It made Kally glad that the threat was a weighty one to Tanner. He liked that Tanner would be devastated if Kally ever had to follow through with it. More than that, he liked how much Tanner liked talking to him, how much Tanner liked him.

Kally knew Tanner was crazy about him. But Tanner was also just… _crazy._ Kally wasn’t ever sure if his over-the-top affection and support of him meant anything in the way that he wanted. He was too scared to ask. Scared that Tanner would freak out at the idea of Kally liking him and would cut _him_ loose. He didn’t even know if Tanner liked guys, didn’t know if he liked girls, either. Kally hadn’t liked anyone. Not until Tanner. He’d been surprised he could feel this way and he was scared he’d never feel this way again. That every kiss would be a joke. But with Tanner—he was such a whirlwind that Kally could imagine a stomach-lurching, heart-stopping romance with him.

Kally sighed, long and forlorn, even to his own ears. He and Tanner already had a place with each other. There wasn’t any point to risking that.

“I’m sorry, Kally,” Tanner said, eyes downcast and set upon finding every shard of glass.

“You didn’t break a bottle over _my_ head,” Kally told him.

“I’ll say sorry to Aiden tonight.”

“Good.”

“You’ll forgive me?” Tanner pressed, puppy-dog eager. “I’m sorry I ruined your night, I know you were having fun.”

“I’ll forgive you,” Kally said, conjuring up a smile. “But you have to promise not to go berserk every time I kiss someone—,”

“Aiden used tongue and that’s against the rules,” Tanner insisted. And he’d been doing so well at being repentant until now. Kally sighed again.

“I don’t think we really established rules. And you haven’t agreed to my condition.”

“Fine, I promise not to go berserk every time you kiss someone. If you’ll promise not to let them use tongue.”

“Why does it—?” Kally shook his head, deciding to find this funny rather than confusing. “All right, sure. I promise.”

“Really?” Tanner asked, surprised. Then, a touch sulkily, “I wasn’t really serious. You can do whatever you want, I won’t freak out again. I just wasn’t expecting it to be Aiden, is all.”

“What about Aiden?”

“You were so happy about kissing him, it just made me mad.”

“I was just having fun, goofing off with my friends. We all were,” Kally pursed his lips. “I don’t understand…”

“Would you have laughed if I’d spun the bottle when it landed on you?”

“No.”

Tanner shrugged up one shoulder and didn’t say anything more. Kally watched him, curious. He really seemed upset over this— _obviously he was upset, he proved that when he broke a bottle over Aiden’s head._ The thought didn’t give Kally as much assurance as it should have. Objectively speaking, every single thing Tanner had said or done in the last half hour pointed to a pretty conclusive answer. But Tanner wasn’t objective and so Kally wasn’t sure.

“I’d have been too nervous to laugh,” Kally spoke to his hands, fidgeting with the sack he held open. “If it had been you, it wouldn’t have felt so much like a joke.”

The broom crashed to the floor. Kally hadn’t seen it but the sound was unmistakable and he’d known it was coming. Tanner’s surprise was like every other emotion on him—unmistakable and loud.

“You’d take it seriously?” Tanner asked. “If I kissed you, you’d take me seriously?”

“Of course.” Kally abandoned the black bag he’d been holding, setting it aside for later when he got Tanner back on task. But right now, it was impossible to steer either of them back to cleaning. “I always take you seriously.”

“Do not!” Tanner accused. “You always smile and shake your head like I’m being silly when I say I love you and you’ve never said if I have any chance of getting you to say it back eventually!”

“You—I’m sorry, I think I’ve misunderstood something. Do you…have _feelings_ for me?” Kally was still struggling to understand but Tanner was looking at him like he’d just asked if the sky was blue.

“Duh. You’re my favorite person in the universe, I keep telling you _I love you._ I know you think I’m all over the place but I’m serious about this, Kally. I thought you were just too nice to say you didn’t like me back when I told you.”

“But you say it _all_ the time,” Kally protested, “and in the most random moments. I never thought you meant anything romantic by it.”

“I say it all the time ‘cause I think it all the time. And I always mean everything by it.” Tanner’s pout was pronounced and wounded in nature. And he was right to be offended this time. There were years worth of _I love you_ s that Kally had completely misunderstood, wrongly categorized, written off. But, somehow, Tanner had never been deterred. Somehow, he’d never stopped giving them.

Kally crossed the small clubhouse to stand before Tanner and take his pouting face in both hands. This close, he could see every freckle on Tanner’s face. Count them, if he wanted to. He did, but not right now. Counting freckles across cheeks and nose and forehead could wait for another time.

“I’m sorry,” Kally said gently. “I should have taken you seriously all this time. I was just scared to.”

“Don’t be scared, Kally,” Tanner whispered, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued. “I love you.”

Kally’s stomach dropped to hear it said like that and, for the second time that evening, Kally kissed someone with a laugh. But this laugh wasn’t the laugh you gave over a good joke, this laugh was the kind that escaped you when you were too happy for words.

As soon as Kally’s lips were pressed against Tanner’s, Tanner lurched into action, hyperactive and exuberant and wild. He caught Kally’s laugh and returned it tenfold, arms hooking around Kally’s waist tight and picking him off the ground to swing around in a circle. Kally was only surprised for a moment, holding snuggly to Tanner to make sure he wasn’t dropped before being put back down.

“I love you too.” Kally had to push Tanner’s face off him to have the chance to say it at all. And when Tanner kissed him right after, Kally took it seriously. He’d never seen himself as someone who could have a whirlwind romance but he did have Tanner and that was bound to be a whirlwind all its own.


End file.
